Schools of magic in Fantasy RPG's

Hey everyone,

While fiddle farting around with my side project RPG engine(s) I've gone over several options and renditions of potential ways to break down character growth. I'm looking to develop a random number generated ARPG, like Diablo, as well as a “dice-less” variation for a more action based FPRPG, like Skyrim.

Anyway, in that process I'm looking at balancing Core Stats (str, agl, int, end, etc...), perks, and skills/abilities.

I would like the player to be able to develop in any direction they want and gain skills/abilities through quests that tie into the quest tree (so, if they are doing quests for the fighter's guild, they'd get melee abilities as rewards).

Here's my question, how would you break up the magic abilities?

Or at least, what magic systems have you like in other games?

The three concepts I'm leaning to are:
1) A magic system similar to Magic the Gathering, or Master of Magic with Black (Dark), White (Light), Red (Chaos/Elemental), Green (Nature), and Blue (Arcane/Time and Space).

OR

2) A magic system that has abilities fall under a spectrum between Black Magic and White Magic, where Intelligence boosts Black Magic and Will Power boosts White Magic.

OR

3) A hybrid between 1 and 2 where there are the five schools, but they also fall on the spectrum:

Anyway, what sort of magic systems have you liked?

 

The first thing you should do in my opinion, is to drop this whole black vs. white/good vs. evil thing. It's boring, uncreative and barely any interesting spin at it exists, despite it being totally overdone.

My recommendation would be to instead make all magic pitch black and every single power f****d up in it's own way. Then proceed to paint magic as a shunned thing in general and make it purely optional, so that you can win the game with "conventional combat" instead. A competent writer should be able to make something very interesting and unique with those ingredients.

The first thing that comes to my mind, would be to group the powers by how they work.

Spoiler: A concrete example

Let the player specialize in "body", "mind" or "nature" abilities.

"Body" powers would be everything that affect your own body, like healing. But instead of that boring old healing power, you get a power similar to what was called "Force Drain" in Jedi Academy. You heal by draining someone else's health, possibly killing them in the process. It starts off as a simple power that can drains some health from an enemy and heals you by a fraction of it. By upgrading it, the range increases, the possibility to drain multiple targets at once opens, it becomes faster, more efficient and deadlier. A cool touch would be unlocking the same ability you had in Jedi Academy at a high level: Grabbing your target and draining massive amounts of health, with them being completely helpless. (Drawing)
It's a much cooler approach to the standard healing ability.

"Mind" powers would be things like mind control. Mind control would force an enemy to use whatever abilities he has to hurt himself for a certain amount of time. Stronger enemies can resist it, thus making it wear off faster. You could upgrade it to make it last longer, which would cause more damage to be done and one less enemy to worry about for some time.
Why should telekinesis be restricted to picking stuff up, if you could also snap someone's neck from a distance?

"Nature" powers would be the typical things like pyrokinesis. And let's be honest here: Setting someone ablaze from a distance doesn't need to get any darker. The same thing applies to powers like lightning and freezing. A sinister take at air elemental powers would be an ability to create a vacuum making enemies inside take damage from suffocation and negating fire-based powers.

 

You can also read some D&D books. They have a more interesting magical school system based on the role a spell plays:

Conjuration - Used to summon things and interact meaningfully with summoned things (e.g. Summon Balrog)
Abjuration - Defensive magic. These are barrier and dispelling spells (e.g. Anti-Magic Field)
Divination - Magic used to gain information (e.g. Scry Known Location)
Evocation - Magic that manipulates energy. (e.g. the Fireball that 10th level wizard just shoved somewhere awkward.)
Necromancy - Magic used to interact with life, death, and lifeforce itself (e.g. any instant-death spell)
Transmutation - Magic that alters material objects (e.g. Transmute Iron to Gold)
Illusion - Magic used to mess with the senses (e.g. Invisibility)
Enchantment - Magic used to mess with the mind of another being (e.g. Compulsion)

 

To add some more links:
http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/05/unangband-magic-system-part-one.html which, if memory serves, is about half theory and half implementation for roguelikes, and:
http://www.zork.net/~nick/loyhargil/gramarye.html which is breaking down what is being manipulated with how it's being manipulated.
Just in case you don't have enough crap about magic to read...

At this point I would say just do whatever works. Unless you're actually going to graph out the history of magic as would be taught in a school and bake in to the lore the lineage of modern magic, don't bother to think about it much so that it will just work.

Slight aside but why is there nature AND chaos, and why would they be opposites? Never mind the fact that you've got chaos on the side of intelligence, which should be more orderly since they would be the more calculating type. It makes much more sense to put chaos on the side with the feels bro. Good job reinforcing that lawful good is lawful stupid though.

 

Personally, I have always thought of magic as the archaic elements: Earth, Fire, Air, Water, Light, Dark... these also could be split into i believe twelve if you really wanted, but this can all be found in more DnD stuff as mentioned already.

 

Those themselves aren't the actual classical elements. The classical elements from Greek texts are fire, earth, water, and wind. There's also a Chinese version, which instead substitutes wind for metal and wood (so, there's five classical elements in the Chinese version.)

 

white magic - healing
black magic - harming
red magic - sexual
... idk ive heard of red magic lol .. not sure the history of the idea.. but i read it in some metaphysical writing, but i first heard of it playing final fantasy lol ... which doesnt really associate it in writing with being sexual.. BUT notice the character kinda looks like a 'pimp' http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Red_Magic

i LOVED the classes.. or jobs in final fantasy 5 .. the way the characters changed appearance felt very satisfying..
http://fantasyanime.com/finalfantasy/ff5/ff5jobs.htm

another thing is here... page 21
http://gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/...d/Rings_of_Power_-_1991_-_Electronic_Arts.pdf
mind - sorcerer
separation - knight
force - archer
summoning- conjurer
body - necromancer
change (or chaos) - enchanter

or here (elder scrolls series) http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Schools_of_Magicka
Alteration‎
Conjuration‎
Destruction‎
Illusion
Mysticism‎
Restoration
Shadow Magic
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also, ive read , magic is of the mind... all things that have to do with the mind Is magic,
art, music, language, perceptions, colors, etc IS Magic
like, throwing a ball in the air is physics, mixing salt and water is chemistry, painting a picture or talking is magic
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